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THE OLD HOME AND THE NEW. 

FOR THE MONONGAHELA CITY OLD HOME-COMING ASSOCIATION. 
By Boyd Crumrine, Washington, Pa, 

Above the Egyptian mantel covering the v^ide-mouthed, not in use, 
but flower-fronted fire-place of the main sitting room of the restful Saeger- 
town Inn, in which you spent the few days of your last vacation, are placed 
the graceful neck, head and antlers of a deer, an old-time Queen Anne's 
Musket, and in a long frame a legend in large German text, reading; 

**3 am an aih man mh i|aor \}ah mattg Iroublps. 
but most nf tl|em nener l)a^^pnpii." 

The legend seems to teach us that although every life may have its 
trials and its struggles, yet that of all its troubles the most of them are from 
want of coolness and courage to anticipate and meet them as they come. 

You, of the Monongahela City old Home-coming Association for the 
week of September 6-13, 1908, have opened your doors, not to strangers 
alone who are come for the first time and are welcomed, but to all who 
were native born, or at any time were residents among you, and now have 
come again to see what the old home looks like, and to meet at least a 
few of the old friends of other days. All who have so come in these days 
are yours and you are theirs ; and if it be that any one shall say that he 
"is an old man and has had many troubles," may all these troubles be 
obliterated from memory by this week's entertainment ! 

Is there anywhere on earth one, not relapsed into utter savagery, who 
does not, whatever his age and whatever his condition in life, and wherever 
he may be, often turn to the thoughts of home, the place where he first 
came into life, or where in his strong young years he had built a home of his 
own? To every man and woman in this broad land of ours, or in any lands, 
there is at least one spot on earth, indelible forever in memory, to which the 
heart often and often turns, as it turns to-day to many a home along the Mon- 
ongahela. 

When the poet opens his soul to the infinite limits of spirit about 
him and speaks the words which fall into the minds of men to stay there, 
he speaks the words of truth, and truth is depth-moving and everlasting. 

John Howard Payne, poet, play-writer and play-actor, was born in 
New York in 1791, the sixth of a family of nine children. His parents dy- 
ing when he was about thirteen or fourteen, he never afterwards knew what 
it was to have a home. Although never, perhaps, in absolute want, yet he 
always felt himself poor, but was honored all over America, England and 
the Continent by the esteem of the great. He died at the age of sixty 
years on April 10, 1852, when United States Consul at Tunis in Africa, his 
play-writing and his play-acting days having long before ended. His mor- 
tal remains lay for thirty-two years marked by a monument erected to his 
memory in the Cemetery of St. George at Tunis, until, through the liberality 



of Wm. W. Corcoran, and the love and sympathy of his countrymen, they 
were brought to the United States in 1883, and, as he belonged to the na- 
tion, re-interred in the Congressional Cemetery at Washington, D. C, whilst 
a thousand voices joined in singing his immortal melody of "Home, Sweet 
Home." 

There is a tradition that, whilst this homeless wanderer was at one 
time in Paris, he was walking alone aimlessly about the suburbs of the city 
late at night, during a turbulent storm which harmonized well with his 
own spirit. As he passed a modest but comfortable cottage, the unblinded 
windows disclosed a well-warmed, well-lighted room containing the entire 
family. Several happy-looking young-lady daughters were filling the air 
with music, at the piano, whilst the white-capped mother with her knitting 
lyino- idle in her lap, and the be-spectacled father with his book overturned 
upon his knee, were both silently smiling at the tricks and antics of the 
younger boys and little ones scampering and tip-toeing from corner to 
corner about the floor. Was it at all strange that the tears which fell 
from the eyes of this homeless man, as he was held fixed to the pavement by 
this scene, would not stop until he had set down for the world to love 
forever the beautiful and soul-filling words of 

HOME, SWEET HOME. 

"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may i-oam, 

Be 'it ever so humble there is no place like home; 

A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there, 

Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. 

Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home. 
There's no place like Home. There's no place like Home. 

"An exile from Home, splendor dazzles in vain; 

O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again. 

The birds singing gaily, that came at my call, — 

Give me them, — and the peace of mind dearer than all. 

Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home. 
There's no place like Home. There's no place like Home. 

"How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile, 
And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile. 
LfCt others delight mid new pleasures to roam, 
But give me, Oh, give me the pleasures of home. 

Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home. 
There's no place like Home. Tliere's no place like Home. 

"To thee I'll return, overburdened with care; 

The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there; 

No more from that cottage again will I roam; 

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home, 

Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home. 
There's no place like Home. There's no place like Home." 

You do not imagine, do you, that this idea of home, for the protec- 
tion of wife and children, is a matter of mere sentiment? That, bevond 
provision for a shelter from the storm and for comfort against the heat 
of summer and the cold of winter, the home is of no practical purpose in 
the affairs of men ? 

"And what's the use of a new baby?" is a question you have often 
heard put in a manner not unfriendly to the new baby at all, but as though 
the questioner supposed that none but a nonsensical answer could be made 
to it. Far otherwise ; for, in its last analysis, the new baby is at the very 



basis of all the higher forms of civil society and self-government; and 
in the design of the home to take care of him, that the end of his existence 
shall be attained, he is directly in the way of a final adjustment of the 
matters of this earth, at least, that the purposes of the great Creator and 
Ruler may be carried out. 

It would be treason to hold that governments of the people, by 
the people and for the people, are not absolutely necessary. But, wdth 
the spirit of independence abroad and touching every individual person in 
the land, would any association of men for the establishment of such a 
government, to endure permanently, ever be formed by the voluntary agree- 
ment of all, if there were not in each person an element of such all-pervad- 
ing power over him that, although overlooked as to its actual existence and 
force, is yet present with all and in such power as to impel them to come 
together in such a governmental relation that the well-being of the mass 
may be best attained? It is the new bab}^ and the home to take care of 
him, that brings nations into existence. 

It is the thought of that great thinker. Professor John Fiske, now 
deceased, as discussed at length in his Destiny of Man, that the fact of the 
long period of infancy of the child of the human race, is the controlling fact 
evidencing the intention that man, of all living creatures, shall dominate 
the earth. The colt, the calf, the pig, and almost every other domestic 
animal, rises in a day from the place where it is dropped; in a week or 
so it is racing fleet-footed over the fields, and it soon becomes able to look 
after its own wants, and to do without parental aid and sustenance. Man 
is allotted in the neighborhood of three-score and ten vears, a much longer 
life period than is allotted to any other animal, yet from the time of his 
birth, a period of almost one-third of the whole period of human life must 
elapse before the young fellow becomes able fully to take care of himself 
and to look out for that wdiich will best fit him for his work in life, for the 
remaining two-thirds thereof. /Vnd what a pitiable little thing the new baby 
is for even months of his first existence. He may be pretty to his mother 
and to some of her true friends, but to his father he is of not much account 
until his muscles have begun to stififen, and he starts to show the mettle 
that is in him; and until eight, nine, ten or fifi;een years of age constant 
teaching is a necessity for him, and watchfulness and anxiety concerning 
him shall not cease until he is about twenty-one. when he is supposed to 
be his own man. 

The idea is not fully developed here of course, but enough of it is 
presented to show that a result intended in the very nature of things has 
been brought about. As man is to have dominion over land and sea and 
over all that in them is, this long period of youthful adolescence, is so pro- 
tracted as to establish the family relation, to give to the young human being 
the strength of muscle and bone, and of spirit and manhood, of courage and 
morality, to fit it for the work of life; and at the same time, by a reflex 
action upon the parents, to build them up in patience, unselfishness and 
virtue, civil and moral, kindness and consideration, and other elements of a 
like nature to build up the family in the home, and constitute it the unit 
of the state and nation. 

Why did our forefathers leave the old homes thev had established 
beyond the waters of the unconquered sea, but to better the conditions of 
their families, of their wives, their sons and daughters, and have better 
homes for all? Why, except to make their own laws and carry on their own 
methods of government, for the liberties of their own families and homes, 
was it that our ancestors, settled substantially along the Atlantic Coast' 



with a whole continent stretching towards the Pacific, felt that they must 
be freed from British domination, even though they had to fight for it, and 
were made ready for the word that the British forces had started from 
Boston, for Lexington and Concord, as told in 



PAUIi BEVERE'S BIDE. 

"Listen, my children, and you shaU liear 

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; — 

Hardly a man is now alive 

Who remembers that famous day and year, — 

He said to his friend, 'If the British march 

By land or sea from the town to-night. 

Hang a lantern aloft in the Belfry arch 

Of the North Church tower, as a signal light; — one. 

If by land, and two, if by sea; 

And I on the opposite shore will be. 

Ready to ride and spread the alarm 

Through every Middlesex village and farm, 

For the country folk to be up and to arm. 



"So through the night rode Paul Revere, 

And so through the night went his cry of alarm 

To every Midcilesex village and farm; — • 

A cry of defiance and not of fear, 

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door. 

And a word that shall echo forevermore. 

For, borne on the night wind of the Past, 

Through all our history to the last, 

In the hour of darkness and peril and need. 

The people will waken and listen to hear 

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, 

And the midnight message of Paul Revere." 

In the Monongahela Valley. 



At the time of the conflict of the American yeomanry with the regu- 
lar soldiers of the British army at Lexington and Concord, on April 19, 
1775, more than one year before the thirteen American colonies, in a repre- 
sentative Congress assembled, adopted the final and authoritative Declara- 
tion of Independence from the mother country, the settlers in the Valley 
of the Monongahela, were on the outposts of civilization, and in an exceed- 
ingly unique and dangerous condition. It must be remembered that at 
this date the cabins of the pioneer had extended from the foot of the Alle- 
ghany mountains across the Monongahela River and into all sections of 
the country East of the Ohio, and that many were the crude homes of 
adventurers here and there set down in little cleared patches by some 
running stream or some sparkling spring of water. Indeed, there is now 
no doubt at all that in the Spring of 1775 what is now Westmoreland, Wash- 
ington, Fayette, and Greene counties, and those parts of Allegheny and Beaver 
South of the Monongahela and Ohio rivers, were occupied by hardy settlers, 
from the mouths to the head-waters of all its principal streams, the earliest 
settlements beginning in old Washington County about 1769; with the 
country round about yet a wilderness of tall Oaks, Sugars and Walnuts, and 
other luxuriant trees, except where the little clearings here and there were 
marked by the blue smoke curling up above the tree-tops from the cabin 
chimney of the lonesome pioneer, who for the subsistence of his family 




^^^ 



KENNEDY HOMESTEAD ON MINGO CREEK, BUILT BEFORE THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION. 



ground his corn in a hand-mill for his bread, and for his meat he stalked 
the wild deer, the bear and the turkey; whilst the stillness of the evening 
and of the night at all times was often made full of terror by the scream of 
the panther, the howl of the wolf and the warwhoop of the merciless Indian. 

This condition of things existed throughout our valleys and hills not 
so very long ago. Two full lives of three score and ten years will carry 
you back to these days. Was not your granduTother, whom you well 
knew in her old days and in your young days, one of three little girls who 
were paddled by their mother alone, — your great grandmother, down the 
Susquehanna, through hostile tribes of Indians, to meet at the place called 
Harrisburg, now, their father and your great grandfather, who had been 
forced to proceed to that point by way of New York and Philadelphia? 
And do you not remember old George Hupp, the son of Everhart Hupp, 
who with George Bumgarner and Abraham Teegarden had settled at the 
mouth of Ten Mile Creek about 1769, upon the land a part of which is now 
occupied by the Town of Millsboro; that you were a very little boy when 
this George Hupp, then seventy-five or eighty perhaps, at least an old man. 
but strong and sprightly, would come to 3'our father's house in the dead of 
winter, in a coon-skin cap, fringed hunting shirt, deer-skin trousers and 
moccasins, his old-time tomahawk and long knife stuck in his belt, his 
powder-horn and bullet-pouch hanging at his side, and his long-barreled 
flint-lock rifle thrown over his shoulder? Your father liked the generous 
old man with the loud voice, and the best in the house was put before him, 



and especially the big round-bellied black bottle from the corner cupboard; 
but you trembled as you listened with strained attention to the tales told 
by the old man of the stalking- of Indians as well as of the panther and bear 
when on his ranging with his own father; and you will never forget that old 
rifle, and the tomahawk and scalping knife which had done active service in 
the days of blood. 

The Boundary Controversy. 

Well, to Avhat governmental jurisdiction did our early settlers belong, 
in the days of Lexington and Concord? There were two colonial govern- 
ments in force in the Monongahela Valley and the settlers had their choice. 

Pennsylvania was a proprietary province, whilst Virginia was a crown 
colony. The grant by King Charles in 1681, was of a tract named "Pensyl- 
vania," embraced within five degrees of longitude West from a fixed point 
near the Delaware River, and three degrees of latitude North and South, 
and the grant was to William Penn, his heirs and assigns, in fee. Virginia, 
on the other hand, being a crown colony, its lands were ever in the crown, 
to be granted at the will of the crown to favorites or purchasers. By its 
amended charter passed in 1609, its Northwestern boundary line was absurd- 
ly claimed to run due Northwest from a point two hundred miles on the 
Atlantic Coast North from old Point Comfort, which line would have cut 
diagonally through Pennsylvania and would have taken from that province 
the larger part of its territory ; but this extent of claim on the part of 
Virginia never attracted attention, for even though the Virginia charter an- 
tedated the grant to William Penn by about seventy-five years, yet even 
the crown was estopped by the later grant in fee. 

No attempt was made by Pennsylvania to measure the extent toward 
the W^est of her five degrees of longitude from the Delaware river, and 
where was the line which made her Western boundary? Not until about 
1735 ^vas the Supreme Executive Council at Philadelphia informed by rude 
sketches and information furnished by adventurous traders and trappers 
who had penetrated beyond the Alleghanies, that entirely beyond the barrier 
of these mountains there were great rivers ^nd beautiful valleys, and round- 
ed hills clothed with richness to their very tops, all awaiting the settler's 
home. Soon afterward arose the trouble between the Pennsylvania authori- 
ties and Lord Baltimore as to the location of the southern boundarv of Penn- 
sylvania ; and somewhere along about 1750 a party of surveyors were sent 
out from Philadelphia with compass and chain, to find out whether the 
Indian village of Logstown, about eig-hteen miles below the union of the 
Allegheny and Monongahela rivers to form the Ohio, was within the five 
degrees of longitude Westward granted to William Penn. The report of 
this body of engineers establishing the fact affirmatively, relating the hard- 
ships endured, the surprises and wonders accruing to them as they proceed- 
ed through the apparently impassable mountain barriers, both by day and 
by night, form an interesting account in the pages of one of the volumes 
of our Colonial Records. 

About this time Virginia, claiming that these lands with the fine 
rivers and rich valleys West of the mountains, belonged to that colony, and 
as a crown colony being more vigilant of British interests than her more 
independent neighbor Pennsylvania, her royal governor Dinwiddle, appoint- 
ed by the crown, sent a young man named George Washington, a surveyor 
by occupation, twenty-one years of age only, but of matured intellect and 
character, to demand from the French what was the meaning of their pro- 



ceedings in crossing from Lake Erie to the head waters of the Allegheny, 
and their building of protective forts and blockhouses thereon as they 
proceeded. And here was the beginning of what was known as the French 
and Indian War, the building of Fort Duquesne on the Point at Pittsburgh ; 
the building and surrender by George Washington of Fort Necessity, just 
beyond what is now Uniontown, Pa., on July 4, 1754; of Braddock's Defeat, 
just above Pittsburgh, on July 9, 1755; followed by Forbes's Ecxpedition in 
1758, a war lasting for ten years and terminating with the Treaty of Peace 
of 1763, by which France lost substantially all her possessions on the North 
American continent that lay East of the Mississippi ; this war, involving the 
English and French nations on land and sea, with such a momentous result, 
beginning within a circle of perhaps thirty miles from the place of this home 
coming. 

It was the interference by Virginia in the affairs of the Monongahela 
Valley, just before and at and during the French and Indian War that 
stirred up the Pennsylvania authorities to dispute vigorously the pretensions 
of Virginia in the territory AVest of the mountains. The Virginia authorities 
persistently urged that the limit of Penn's five degrees of longitude would, 
if properly measured, put the Forks of the Ohio and all of what is now 
Washington, Fayette and Greene counties into Virginia. But Pennsylvania 
said, No; and when, after long delays in determining the case of Penn and 
Lord Baltimore, in the English Court of Chancery, in 1767 Mason and 
Dixon, two eminent English civil engineers, w^ere sent over to locate and 
mark on the ground the line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, just 
where it is to-day. But when these surveyors w^ere within about thirty- 
eight miles of the point which would have been the end of a line due west 
from the fixed point at the Delaware, five degrees of longitude in length, 
they were stopped by the Indians who would not permit them to cross the 
"Old Warriors' Trail" used by the Indians passing from the North to the 
South. And thus the Southwest corner of Pennsylvania had not yet been 
found and established, from which to run its Western boundary to the 
North, and the controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia continued, 
many compromise lines being suggested, but all refused. The fact is that 
Lord Dunmore, the then representative of the British Crown in Virginia, 
was an intense loyalist; he knew what was likely to come on, and pre- 
ferred that the relations of the American colonies should not be solidified and 
amicable. 

In Dunmore's War with the Western Indians, in 1774, Pennsylvania 
had taken no part. But Dunmore in person as the Royal governor of Vir- 
ginia was along with the bodv of soldiers who came and returned by way of 
Pittsburgh. On his return he stopped at Redstone Old Fort (now Browns- 
ville) where he had Thomas Scott, a Justice of the Westmoreland Countv 
Court, established by Pennsylvania the year before, who had been arrested 
by Virginia officials for exercising the functions of a magistrate under the 
laws of Pennsylvania, to be brought before him for examination, and for 
possible commitment for trial at Staunton, Va. And this requires an ex- 
planation of new conditions then existing. 

Immigration into the ]\Ionongahela Valley had begun about 1765 or 
1767, the early immigrants stopping in what is now Fayette and Greene 
counties, and in about 1769 it broke over the ^lonongahela River, and soon 
spread across to the Ohio. By far the larger part of this immigration came 
from the Shenandoah \'alley, \'irginia, some of it from Maryland and some 
from the Eastern part of Pennsylvania towards the Maryland line. Indeed, 



many of the immigrants from the Shenandoah Valley had m former days 
gone thither from Pennsylvania, some of them German and others Scotch- 
Irish. So that by the time that substantially all sections of what is now 
Southwestern Pennsylvania had been occupied more or less with the homes 
of the new settlers, Scotch-Irish, Germans and Quakers as well, and the 
boundary line question still unsettled, there came a clash of colonial iuris- 
dictions. . . 

In 1771 Bedford County was formed by the Pennsylvania authorities, 
with its county seat at Raystown (now Bedford), the county extending from 
a line drawn by Cumberland County on the East to the limits of the Pro- 
vince on the West, which were not yet ascertained. Persons living on both 
sides of the Monongahela attended the Pennsylvania Courts of Bedford 
County held at Raystown. Only two years later, however, in 1773, West- 
moreland County was created by the Pennsylvania authorities, its East- 
ern boundary being the ridges of the Laurel Hills range of the moun- 
tains, and its Western boundary being the Western boundary of the 
State, still in dispute between Pennsylvania and Virginia as to just 
where that boundary line was. Old Westmoreland was therefore the 
mother county of Washington, Fayette, Allegheny, Greene and Beaver, and 
of other counties to the North of the latter county, and its courts were es- 
tablished at Hannastown, a village about three miles to the Northeast of 
the present borough of Greensburg; and of course all its officials. — its jus- 
tices, sheriflf, coroner, assessors, constables, etc., were commissioned and ap- 
pointed in the name of the British Crown, for Pennsylvania was still a 
province of Great Britain. 

In the Fall of 1774, when Dunmore's War was over and Lord Dun- 
more had returned to Williamsburg, then the capitol city of Virginia, the 
Virginia authorities, to meet the active extension by Pennsylvania over the 
lands West of the Alleghanies, established as an appendage to Augusta 
County, Va., with its county seat at Staunton, far down the Shenandoah 
Valley, a new political division and called it the District of West Augusta, 
embracing all of Southwestern Pennsylvania, and extending down along the 
boundary of old Augusta County into the undisputed part of old Virginia. 
The county seat of the District of West Augusta was established at old 
Fort Pitt, changed in name to Fort Dunmore ; and officials were commis- 
sioned in the name of the British Crown by Lord Dunmore, — Justices, sher- 
ififs, coroners, assessors, constables, etc., as in Pennsylvania, and on Febru- 
ary 21, 1775, in a part of old Fort Dunmore, (now Pittsburgh,) partly then 
in ruins, began to be held regular sessions of Virginia Courts, in which an 
extensive business was transacted. Then broke out a mild-mannered war 
between the Pennsylvania adherents on the one side and the Virginia ad- 
herents on the other, reaching at times almost to bloodshed. One side de- 
nominated the members of the other as "ruffians, scoundrels," or most 
usually "banditti." The Pennsylvania Justice of the Peace, serving also 
as a Judge of the County Court, commissioned by the governor of the pro- 
vince in the name of his majesty King George III, would issue his warrant 
for the arrest and commitment of the Virginia justices and others commis- 
sioned by Governor Dunmore in the name of the same British King. So, 
when an assessor appointed by Lord Dunmore to value real and personal 
property for the assessment of taxes for the District of West Augusta, the 
poor assessor was arrested and imprisoned in the County Jail at Hannas- 
town, to be held for hearing on the charge of exercising in the county of 
Westmoreland the powers of an official of a foreign government, and vice 
versa. A number of Pennsylvania officials were arrested in Westmoreland 



County and carried to Staunton for the trial of offences committed in Penn- 
sylvania, and the turmoil resulting in the Monongahela Valley, from the 
fact that for five years, from 1775 to 1780, two antagonistic governments 
were exercising jurisdiction over the same people at the same time in the 
same territory, and that, too, when the conditions of a new settlement in 
a new country created a great need for a single and well-established form 
of government, may be fully imagined. 

The War of the Revolution on the Monongahela. 

When the doings at Lexington and Concord reached the Monongahela 
Valley, both the Pennsylvania and Virginia adherents, the latter in a large 
majority of the whole, though separated into two different peoples, then 
united in the one common purpose of fighting for their individual rights 
and privileges, as colonists who had taken up all they had, their lives and 
fortunes, to better their homes and conditions in a new world. For, when 
the people of this valley heard from Lexington and Concord in the early 
Spring of 1775, though bitterly divided amongst themselves in their allegi- 
ance to their separate colonial jurisdictions and by the barriers of the 
mountains cut off from the colonies on the East, and by the Ohio River 
beyond which they must not pass into the recognized Indian country, they 
must not selfishly lag behind in a purpose so common and so great. And 
observe how our own people, in this section, thus segregated from the 
American world in that early day, so reluctantly engaged in a contest that 
might eventually separate them from the mother country which hac- given 
them birth ! 

District of West Augusta Meeting. 

Not quite four weeks after Lexington and Concord, to-wit, on May 
16, 1775' the news brought by messenger having had time to be spread 
abroad, the Virginia adherents held a meeting at Fort Dunmore, attended 
also by a few Pennsylvanians, at which a series of resolutions was passed 
providing for the organization of all able-bodied men into a militia, and for 
the procurement of ammunition of which they were sadly in need. The 
meeting was described at the beginning of the paper reported as "a Meet- 
ing of the Inhabitants of that part of Augusta County that lies on the West 
side of the Laurel Hill, at Pittsburgh," and among the committee named to 
carry out the provisions of the resolutions adopted, were John Cannon, the 
founder of Canonsburg; John McCullough, either the father or the brother 
of Samuel McCullough, who made the famous horse-back leap over the 
precipice of Wheeling Hill ; William Goe, a Justice of the Fort Dunmore 
Court living over this river below Old Redstone (Brownsville) ; George 
Vallandigham, living near what is now Noblestown, the ancestor of C. L. 
Vallandigham, of note during our Civil War; Dorsey Pentecost, subse- 
quently a leader in Washington County public affairs; Edward Cook, the 
founder of Cookstown, now Bellevernon, Fayette County; William Craw- 
ford, of near the present Connellsville, and seven years afterward burned 
at the stake by the Indians at Sandusky, Ohio ; Jacob Vanmetre. living 
in the present Ohio County, West Virginia ; George Wilson, from George's 
Creek in Fayette County ; and John Swearingen, on the East side of the 
Alonongahela above Brownsville, the father of Van Swearingen, the first 
Sheriff of Washington County. These are not the names of all the "Vir- 
ginians" who formed the Committee of the District of West Augusta, but 
enough are given to indicate how widely distributed from the foot of the 



mountains to the Ohio River were the Viro-inia adherents at the date 
referred to. 

Only two of the long resolutions may be copied verbatim here : 

"Resolved unanimously, That this committee have the highest sense of the spirited 
behavior of tlieir brethren in New England, and do most cordially approve of tlieir opposing 
the invaders of American riglits and privileges to tlie utmost extreme, and that each mem- 
ber of tliis committee, respectively, will animate and encourage tlieir neighborliood to follow 
the brave example. 

"The imminent danger that threatens America in general, from ministerial and parlia- 
mentary denunciations of our ruin, and is now carrying into e.xecution by open acts of un- 
provoked liostilities in our sister colony of Massachusetts, as well as the danger to be ap- 
prehended to this colony in particular from a domestic enemy, said to be prompted by the 
wicked minions of power to execute our ruin, added to the menaces of an Indian war, like- 
wise said to be in contemplation, thereby think to engage our attention, and direct it from 
that still more interesting object of liberty and freedom, that deeply, and with as much 
justice hath called forth attention of all America; for the prevention of all, or any of the 
impending evils, it is 

"Resolved, That the recommendation of the Richmond convention of the 20th of last 
March, relative to the embodying, arming, and disciplining the militia, be immediately carried 
into execution with the greatest diligence, in this country, by the officers appointed for that 
end; and that the recommendation of the said Convention to the several committees of this 
colony, to collect from their constituents, in such manner as shall be most agreeable to 
them, so much money as shall be sufficient to purchase half a pound of gun-powder, and 
one pound of lead, flints, and cartridge paper, for every tithable person in the county, be 
likewise carried into execution. 

"This committee, therefore, out of the deepest sense of the expedi- 
ency of this measure, most earnestly entreat that every member of this committee do 
collect from each tithable person in their several districts the sums of two shillings and six 
pence, which we deem no more than sufficient for the above purpose, and give proper receipts 
to all such as pay the same into tlieir hands; and the sum so collected to be paid into the 
hands of Mr. John Campbell, who is to give proper security to this committee, or their 
successors, for the due and faithful application of the money so deposited with him for the 
above purpose, by or with the advice of this committee, or their successors; and this com- 
mittee, as your representatives, and who are most ardently laboring for your preservation, 
call on you, our constituents, our friends, brethren and fellow sufferers in the name of 
God, of everything you hold sacred or valuable, for the sake of your wives, children and 
unborn generations, that you will, every one of you, in your several stations, to the utmost 
of your power assist in levying such sum, by not only paying yourselves, but by assisting 
those who are not at present in a condition to do so. We heartily lament the case of all 
such as have not this sum at command in this day of necessity; to all such we recommend 
to tender security to such as Providence has enabled to lend them so much; and this com- 
mittee do pledge their faith and fortunes to you, their constituents, that we shall, without 
fee or reward, use our best endeavors to procure, with the money so collected, the ammuni- 
tion our present exigencies have made so exceedingly necessary." 

Westmoreland County Meeting. 

On the very same day, May i6, 1775, was held a mectinor of the 
Pennsylvania adherents at Hannastown, about thirty miles only from Pitts- 
burgh, of which the following record was made. Unfortunately the names 
of the men who took part at that meeting have not been preserved, but a 
full copy of the written proceedings is here appended for a lesson in true 
patriotism for the Pennsylvanians of to-day and hereafter. Note the evi- 
dent effort toward a reform of abuses on the part of the British Parliament, 
with loyalty to the British Crown, and yet with a conditional Declaration 
of Independence anticipating that adopted by the Congress of the United 
Colonies held at Philadelphia more than a vear thereafter! And remember 
that Westmoreland County in that day embraced the whole of Southwest- 
ern Pennsylvania as it is to-day. 



"At a general meeting of the inhabitants of the County of Westmoreland, held at 
Hannastown the 16th day of May, 1775, for taking into consideration the very alarming 
situation of the country, occasioned by the dispute with Great Britain: 

"Resolved unanimously, That the Parliament of Great Britain, by several late acts, 
have declared the inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay to be in Rebellion, and the ministry, 
by endeavoring to enforce those acts, have attempted to reduce the said inhabitants to a more 
wretched state of slavery than ever before existed in any state or country. Not content 
with violating their constitutional and chartered privileges, they would strip them of the 
rights of humanity, exposing their lives to the wanton and unpunishable sport of a licentious 
soldiery, and depriving them of the very means of subsistence. 

"Resolved unanimously, That there is no reason to doubt but the same system of 
tyranny and oppression will (should it meet with success in Massachusetts Bay) be extend- 
ed to other parts of America. It is therefore become the Indispensibls duty of every Amer- 
ican, of every man who has any public virtue or love for his country, or any bowels for 
posterity, by every means which God has put in his power, to resist and oppose the execu- 
tion of it; that for us we will be ready to oppose it with our lives and fortunes, and the 
better to enable us to accomplish it, we will immediately form ourselves into a military 
body, to consist of companies to be made up out of the sevei-al townships under the follow- 
ing association, which is declared to be the Association of Westmoreland County: 

"Possessed with the most unshaken loyalty and fidelity to His Majesty, King George 
the Third, whom we acknowledge to be our lawful and rightful King, and who we wish may 
be the beloved sovereign of a free and happy people throughout ths whole British Empire; 
we declare to the world, that we do not mean by this Association to deviate from that loy- 
alty which we hold it our bounden duty to observe; but, animated witli the love of liberty, 
It is no less our duty to maintain and defend our just rights (which, with sorrow, we 
have seen of late violated in many instances by a wicked Ministry and a corrupted Parlia- 
ment) and transmit them entire to our posterity, for which we do agree and associate to- 
getlier, 

"1st. To arm and form ourselves into a regiment or regiments, and choose officers to 
command us in such proportions as shall be thought necessary. 

"2nd. We will, with alacrity, endeavor to make ourselves masters of the manual 
exercise, and such evolutions as may be necessary to enable us to act in a body with concert; 
and to that end we will meet at such times and places as shall be appointed either for the 
companies or the regiments, by tlie officers commanding each when chosen. 

"3d. That should our country be involved by a foreign enemy, or should troops be 
sent from Great Britain to enforce the late arbitrary acts of its Parliament, we will cheerfully 
submit to military discipline, and to the utmost of our power resist and oppose them, or 
either of them, and will coincide with any plan that may be formed for the defence of 
America in general, or Pennsylvania in particular. 

"4th. That we do not wish or desire any innovation, but only that tilings may be re- 
stored to, and go on in the same way as before the era of the Stamp Act, when Boston grew 
great, and America was happy. As a proof of this disposition, we will quietly submit to the 
laws by which we have been accustomed to be governed before that period, and will, in our 
several or associate capacities, be ready when called on to assist the civil magistrate to 
carry the same in execution. 

"5th. That when the British Parliament shall have repealed their late obnoxious 
statutes, and sliall recede from tlieir claim to tax us, and make laws for us in every instance; 
or some general plan of union and reconciliation has been formed and accepted by America, 
this our Association shall be dissolved; but till then it shall remain in full force; and to the 
observation of it, we bind ourselves by everything dear and sacred amongst men. 

"No licensed murder. No famine introduced by law. 

"Resolved, That on Wednesday, the twenty-fourth instant, the townships meet to ac- 
cede to the said Association, and choose their officers." 

Mark the dio'nitv of character in these resolutions. Yon wonder who 
wrote them. Was it Thomas Scott, then residin.o: on Dunlap's Creek near 
Redstone Old Fort, now Brownsville? He was a strono- Pennsylvania ad- 
herent, a Justice of the Westmoreland County Court, an able and educated 
man, and when broug^ht before Lord Dunmore the preceding year he had 
been dischargfed from his arrest; and when Washine^ton County was or- 
ganized on March 28, 1781. he was made the first Prothonotary and Clerk 
of Courts for that county, and was subsequentlv our representative in the 
First Congress of the United States under the U. S. Constitution of 1789. 
He it was who had the honor of presenting to the Congress of the new 



nation the resolution wliieh when adopted estabHshed the capitol of the 
United States of America on the banks of the Potomac where it now is and 
will remain. In blood he was a genuine Scotsman, as tokened by his name. 
He lived and died a citizen of Washington, in Washington County ; his 
remains still lie in the old Walnut Street burial ground at Washington, 
and since his death he has been represented by many worthy descendants, 
and the record of his work in the early history of our county will keep him 
in memory. 

The Revolutionary War came on apace after the Declaration of In- 
dependence promulgated by the Ignited Thirteen Colonies on July 4, 1776. 
The boundary controversy, still unsettled between Pennsylvania and Vir- 
ginia, there were still in the Monongahela Valley two distinct peoples who 
could come together upon one subject, at least, and that was the cause of 
America against at this time both the Crown and Parliament of England, 
in a contest for colonial independence. 

Until of late years you thought that as the l:)attles that were fought 
under the Banner of the Republic, then with but thirteen, now with forty- 
six stars upon it, were all fought within a short distance of the Atlantic 
Coast, but very few if any at all of the people of Southwestern Pennsylvania 
took part in those battles. A great mistake ! For it is nov/ known to a cer- 
tainty that out of the militia of Westmoreland County (then embracing 
Washington, Fa3'ette, Allegheny. Greene and Reaver counties, remember,) 
there went forth across the mountains to fight under Washington in the 
East, two regimental organizations. But Virginia had militia organizations 
here in Monongahela Valley as well as had Pennsylvania; and from the 
militia of the District of West Augusta went forth across the same moun- 
tain barrier three regimental organizations, known as the Third, Fifth and 
Twelfth Virginia Regiments, who fought with their Pennsvlvania brethren 
in the same battles for the Union. It is estimated that a third at least of 
all the able-bodied men from Southwestern Pennsylvania, with their arms 
and equipment, including powder and lead, went out to the East to hear 
the cannon's roar in the battles for the new flag. And, ah ! How about 
the homes, the wives and children, left behind them, to struggle alone in the 
cabins of the wilderness surrounded day and night by not only the panther 
and the wolf, but by the merciless Indians instigated by their own natural 
ferocity and by the ten shillings per scalp paid to them by the agents of the 
British governors of the Canadas, along the great lakes? 

The almost helpless condition of the people of that dav in our sec- 
tion may be sufficiently illustrated by an original paper which lies before 
you as you write. But to make it intelligible it should be stated that by 
the Declaration of Independence and the other important acts of the colonial 
Congress following it, the proprietarv province of Pennsylvania and the 
crown colony of Virginia had become two sovereign states of the American 
Union under the Articles of Confederation, but still the boundary contro- 
versy remained undetermined; and in October, 1776, the legislature of Vir- 
ginia, then becom.e a sovereign state, passed an act dividing the District 
of West Augusta into three new and complete Virginia Counties, to-wit, 
Yohogania, Monongalia and Ohio. These counties all came together at a 
common corner at or near what is now our town of Washington. Standing 
at the reservoir of the Citizens Water Company near the Washington Ceme- 
tery, and looking to the Northeast your eye would overlook Yohogania 
County, Virginia, with its county seat near the West Bank of the Monon- 
gahela, and near the present Allegheny County line. Turning to the right 
and looking to the Southeast you wovdd oversee Monongalia County, Vir- 



ginia, with its county seat in the Southern part of Fayette County, not far 
from the present town of New Geneva, opposite Greensboro, Greene County. 
Turning again to the right and looking to the Southwest and West you 
would have in front of you Ohio County, Virginia, with its county seat at 
West Liberty about eight miles Northwest of West Alexander. Of these 
three old Virginia counties, only one, Ohio County, remains, having its 
county seat at Wheeling, now West Virginia. 

Each of these Virginia counties established in Pennsylvania terri- 
tory had a complete militia organization, although many of its arms-bearing 
men had gone into the patriot army operating in the East. These organi- 
zations were under the control of a County Lieutenant over the whole, in 
each county, with sub-ordinate colonels, majors and captains. 

A Council of War at Catfish Camp. 

Passing near the Southern edge of Washington Borough is a small 
stream of water bearing upon old maps the beautiful Indian name of "The 
Wissameking." Along its banks just below the Waynesburg & Washing- 
ton Railroad Station, a Delaware Indian called Tingoocjua had his hunting 
lodge. Tingooqua meant "The Cat-Fish" in English, and the locality fre- 
quented by him on his hunting tours became the early name of the town 
laid out on October 13, 1781, first called Bassettown, then Dandridge, and 
finally Washington Town. 

The great Patrick Henry had become the first governor of Virginia 
after she had become an independent state in the American Federation, and 
in the early winter of 1776, reports had been circulated of an invasion 01 
Indians instigated by British agents along the lakes, to take place in the 
early Spring thereafter; and on December 9th, and again on December 13, 
1776. respectively, Governor Henry wTOte two letters the last of which, 
addressed to Col. Dorsey Pentecost, the County Lieutenant of Yohogania 
County, then residing probably on the Eastern branch of Chartiers Creek, 
was as follows : 

"Williamsburg-h, December 13, 1776. 
"Sir: 

"The more I consider of the State of things in your Quarter the more I am convinced 
of the Necessity there is to prepare for Hostilities in the Spring-; and althoug-h Continental 
Troops will be stationed on the Ohio, yet the Militia must be the last great Resource from 
which your safety is derived. 

"In order to form something resembling Magazines, for the Present, I have ordered 
about six Tons of Lead for West Augusta; and that this article may be deposited in the 
Proper places, I wish you to Summon a Council of Field Officers and Captains, and Take 
their Opinions whicli places are the fittest for Magazines in tlie tliree Counties of Yohogania, 
Monaungaliela, and Ohio, and Transmit the result to me. 

"I wish you would please to find out where Cap't. Gibson's Cargo of Powder is, and 
let me know. In the Council of Officers I would desire it Sliould be considered whether the 
Militia with you want any Article Government can furnisli, and what it is, for be assured it 
will give me great pleasure to contribute to your Safety. I am of Opinion that unless your 
People wisely Improve tliis Winter you may probably be Destroyed. Prepare then to 
make resistance wliile you Iiave Tiine. I liope by your "Vigorous Exertions your frontier may 
be Defended, and if necessity shall reciuire some assistance be afforded to Combat our 
European Enemies. 

"I have great Expectations from the Number and known Courage of your militia, and 
if you are not wanting in foresight and preparation they will do great things. Let a plan 
of Defence be flx'd and settled beforehand; I mean, principally, the places of Rendezvous and 
the oflScers who are to Act as well as to Provide speedy and certain Intelligence. Let the 
Arms be kept in Constant repair and readiness, and the Accoutrements properly fixed. It will 
be proper to send out Scouts and Trusty Spies Toward the Enemy's Country to bring you 
accounts of their Movements. I wish great care may be used in the Nomination of Military 
Officers with you, as so much depends on a proper appointment. 



"You will please to give strict attention to the great Objects here recommended to 
you, and I shall be Happy to hear of the safety of your People, whose Protection Govern- 
ment will Omit Nothing to accomplish. I am 

Sir 
Your Mo. Ota. Serv't. 
Col. Dorsey Pentecost, ^- Henry, Junr." 

The meeting- of the council thus recommended took place at ''Cat- 
fish Camp", the point where all three of the Virginia counties came togeth- 
er, on January 28, 1777. At the first day's session on said date there were 
present the following militia officers: For Yohogania County, Dorsey Pente- 
cost, County Lieutenant, John Cannon, Colonel, Isaac Cox, Lieut. Col., and 
Henry Taylor, Major; for Ohio County, David Shepherd, County Lieu- 
tenant, Silas Hedge, Colonel, David McClure, Lieut. Col., and Samuel Mc- 
Cullough, Major; and for Monongalia County, Zachwell Morgan, County 
Lieutenant, and John Evans, Major; and there were present also thirty-two 
captains, among whom were : John Munn, John Wall, Gabriel Cox, William 
Scott, Joseph Tumbleson, Benjamin Frye, Matthew Ritchey, Samuel Mea- 
son, John Pearce Duvall, James Brinton, Vinson Colvin, James Buckhan- 
non. Reason Virgin, William Harrod and David Williamson. 

Col. Dorsey Pentecost was unanimously made president of the coun- 
cil, and Col. David McClure was chosen clerk, or, as both spelled and 
pronounced in that day, "Clark." 

The president called the council to order, presented the letters from 
the governor, and upon motion a committee consisting of divers colonels 
and captains, was appointed a ''Select Council, to consider of the before 
mentioned letters, and make their Report to this Council, to be by them 
Re-considered ; and the Council adjourned until to-morrow, 10 o'clock." 

The record of the next day's proceedings was as follows, verbatim : 

"January 29th, 1777. 

"The Council met according to adjournment, present as yesterday, and Col. Isaac Cox 
was unanimously Chosen Vice President. 

"Colo. Pentecost from the Select Council delivered the following resolutions, which he 
read in his place and then handed them to the Clark's Table, where they were read a second 
time. 

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of your committee. That the following is the Pro- 
per Places for Magazines in the District of West Augusta, (vizt) the House of Gabriel Cox 
in the County of Yohogania, the House of John Swearingen in the County of Monaungahela, 
& the House of David Shepherd In the County of Ohio; and that the six Tunns of led to be 
sent to this District, mentioned in his Excellency's letter of the 13th of December last ad- 
dressed to Colo. Pentecost, be divided in the following manner and deposited at the be- 
fore Mentioned places, (vizt) for Yohogania County 2 1-2 Tunns; for the Monaungahela 
County 2i^ Tunns; and for the Ohio County li/ Quarter Tunns, being (as this committee 
conceives) as equal a Division of the said led and other ammunition that may be sent to 
this District, according to the number of People in each County as may be. 

"Resolved that his Excellency the Governor be requested to send with all convenient 
Expedition, Powder Equivalent" to the before mentioned Led; which agreeable to the Rifle 
use is one pound of Powder to two pounds of Led, with Ten Thousand flints. 

"Resolved, that in consequence of his Excellency's Request, and that it is highly nec- 
essary, and it is accordingly Strongly recommended to Colo. Pentecost, to send a Capt. & 50 
men down the Ohio to find out if Possible where Capt. Gibson's Cargo of Powder is, and 
conduct it up to the Settlements; and that it is the Opinion of this Council that the Ofllcers 
and Men to be Employed in this Business Deserves double Wages. 

"Resolved, as the opinion of your Committee, That upon the best Information they Can 
at this Time Collect, that one third of the Militia of this District is without Guns occasioned 
by so many of the Regular Troops being furnished with Guns out of the Militia of this 
District, and that one half of the remaining Part wants Repairs. 

"Resolved, therefore, that Government be requested to send up to this district One 
Thousand Guns, Rifles if Possible to be had, as Muskets will by no means be of the same 
service to defend us against an Indian Enemy. 



"Resolved, for the Purpose of Repairing- Guns, making- Tommelioclis, Sculping Knives, 
&c., that Proper Persons ought to be Employed in each County, at the Public Expense; and 
that Thomas & William Parkenson be appointed in the County of Yohogania, and that they 
Immediately open Shop at their House on the Monaungahela River, for the above purpose; 
and that they make with all Possible Expedition all the Rifle Guns they can, and a sufficient 
number of Tommehocks & Sculping knives, &c., and that the County Lieut. Receive them, or 
direct the Distribution thereof. 

"Resolved, that Robert Currie be Employed for the above Purpose in the Monaunga- 
hela County, and that he open' Shop at his o-wn Dwelling House in the forks of Cheet. 

"Resolved, that Thomas Jones (or some other proper Person to be appointed by the 
County Lieut.) be appointed for the above in the Ohio County, to open Shop at the House of 
Colo. Shepherd. 

"Your committee having Maturely & Deliberately considered the Truly Critical and 
Distressed situation of this Country, and with the deepest Anxiety have viewed the very 
Recent cruel depredations committed on our people by our relentless Neighbors the Indians, 
and with the utmost regard have considered his Excellency's Recommendations to prepare 
for Hostilities in the Spring, and to prepare to make defence while we have Time, & to 
form a plan of Defence for this Country, are of the opinion that if no field Officer appear 
to Take the Command of the Troops now Raised and Raising in this District, at the next 
meeting of the different Committees, that the sd Committees forthwith Order the sd Troops 
to such places on the frontiers as they shall think proper, for the Present Protection of the 
Inhabitants, and at least one hundred of sd Troops be ordered to Grave Creek Fort; and in 
case the said Troops are not stationed as aforesaid, then the County Lieut, of Yohogania 
County is requested to order a Lieut, and 25 men to Baker's Fort, and a Lieut, and 25 to 
Isaac Coxes on the Ohio; and that the County Lieut, of Ohio County order a Lieut, and 25 
men to the Beech Bottom, and a Lieut. & 25 men to the Grave Creek Fort; and that the 
County Lieut, of Monaungahela County order a Capt. & 50 men to be stationed at the house 
of Capt. Owin Davis's at the head of Dunkard Creek, and a Lieut. & 25 Men to Grave Creek 
to augment that Garrison to 50 men; Tliose men to be ordered at such Time as the County 
Lieuts. shall think Proper and the Exigency of the Times Require; and that Militia be 
Drafted, Officered (and held in constant Rediness) to Rendezvouse at the following Places 
in the following manner:- — • 

"(Here is mentioned the active Officers, the place of Rendezvouse in each County, 
which are the places of the Magazines, the drafts and who heads them from each Company, 
which is 15 Privates, one sergt, and a Commissioned Officer, making in the whole about 1,100 
men). 

"Resolved, unanimously, that upon the first Hostilities being committed on our settle- 
ments, that the County Lieut, in whose County the same may happen. Immediately call a 
Council of the three countys, as Proper measures may be persued for the Chastisement of 
the Cruel Perpetrators. 

"Agreed to in full Council, A Copy 

[Signed] "David McClure, Clark." 

End of the Boundary Controversy. 

These transactions of these troublous times were the doing's of the 
Virginia Militia of the Monongabela Valley ; and it may be safely assumed 
that the Pennsylvania militia over the same territory were not behind them 
in activity and vigilance, but only in numbers. 

Only a single incident by way of illustrating the terrors of the life 
of the pioneer and of the life of his family in those days. The cabin of 
]\Iajor Henry Taylor, one of the militia officers of Yohogania County, pres- 
ent at this Council of War on January 28, 29, 1777, was upon the high lands 
about one mile only Northeast of our Washington of to-day. Somewhere 
about the time of this council he was absent from home assisting in the 
defence of a fort or blockhouse on the Western borders of our present 
county of Washington, besieged by the Indians, Ammunition running- low 
Major Taylor under cover of the darkness slipped from the fort unobserved, 
and late in the night made his Avay to his home for a fresh supply. To his 
horror he found that his wife and three little children whom 'he had left 
in his cabin were there no longer. Supposing they had been taken captive 
by the Indians then prowling in numbers throughout the country, but 



fearino- to disclose his presence at home by striking a light for a search, 
he hurriedly procured the ammunition desired and returned to the tort. 
On the coming morning it was found that the siege was raised and the 
enemy departed, when with help from the men from the fort he hurried 
back to his home and found that his wife, alarmed at the prolonged absence 
of her husband, had early in the evening taken the children with her to the 
woods, where a large tree had blown down leaving at its upturned roots 
a deep hole which had filled with dry leaves, and that in these leaves she 
had covered up herself and the children for the night. Her agony during 
the long hours of darkness was heightened by the distant cry of the panther, 
and as well by the overpowering fear that a cry from one of the children 
might bring upon her and them the yell of lurking savages. 

The hostilities anticipated for the Spring of 1777. did not occur, at 
least to the expected extent. Perhaps the preparations made to meet them 
had become noised abroad and had frightened the dreaded enemy. ^ But 
the boundary controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia still continued 
rindetermined. Its determination, however, had become more easy as the 
War of the Revolution proceeded. What seemed to be impossible whilst 
Pennsylvania was a proprietary province and Virginia a crown colony, both, 
although unequally, under the power of the British Parliament, became 
possible when both the contestants were independent states of a federation, 
then at war with the parent country. So it was that in 1779, commissioners 
from the respective states met in conference at Baltimore, and after much 
deliberation an agreement w^as finally reached, which, subject to ratification 
bv the legislatures of the two states, was to terminate the boundary contro- 
versy that had been a matter of heated contention for nearly thirty years. 
That agreement was in substance that Mason and Dixon's line should 
be extended on the same parallel from the point to which the engineers 
had marked it in 1767, when stayed by the Indians, to a point which meas- 
ured in full five degrees of longitude from the fixed point on the Delaware, 
thus establishing the Southwest corner of the State of Pennsylvania; and 
a line run due North from that corner should constitute the Western boun- 
dary of our State. Fortunately that agreement was finally ratified by the 
legislatures of Pennsylvania and Virginia the following winter, having an 
important condition attached, to-wit, that where lands falling within the 
newly determined limits of Pennsylvania had been settled upon under the 
laws of Virginia, the rights acquired by the settlers thereby should be 
thereafter respected by the land-office of Pennsylvania in the granting of 
patents to such settlers, their heirs and assigns. And on September 24. 
1780. the last Virginia Court was held within the present limits of Pennsyl- 
vania, Virginia's occupation of any portion of Pennsylvania was ended, and 
thenceforth the early Virginia settlers in the Monongahela Valley became 
and have since remained entirely loyal Pennsylvanians. 

On the formation of Washington County by an act of assembly 
passed on March 28, 1781, many of the former Virginia adherents were 
made public officials of the new county. As an instance, onlv. among 
many, many others. Major Henry Taylor, a member of the Council of War 
noted above, said to have emigrated from Cecil County, Maryland, but 
always a consistent Virginia adherent, afterwards became Colonel and 
County Lieutenant, and subsequently Brigadier General of the militia, and 
on the organization of Washington County in 1781 he was commissioned 
as the presiding Justice of the several county courts, and presided at the 
first term of court of that county, held on October 2, 1781. In 1783 
he was succeeded in that office by Col. Dorsey Pentecost, an ardent Vir- 



ginian, and also a leader thereafter in the public affairs of Pennsylvania. 
And so it is that as to the titles to lands throughout Southwestern Penn- 
sylvania, as they are held to-day, very, very many of them, had their 
origin in certificates of settlement granted to settlers under the Virginia 
Laws by Virginia commissioners holding sessions and hearing proofs of 
settlements at points along the Monongahela River in the winter of 1779 
and the following year of 1780. 

May we not, then stand upon the proposition, not, of course, stated 
for the first time in this paper, but well established though seldom remem- 
bered, that the labors, trials and sufferings of our pioneer immigrants, in 
passing over mountain barriers known only to the daring adventurer, to 
seek a new home in the wilderness ; in finding that home upon the waters 
of the Monongahela or Ohio ; in starting with the little clearing where the 
cabin was hurriedly placed in some apparently favored spot, and where 
the daylight hours were full of lonely toil and the night-time full of rest- 
lessness and terror; that these and a hundred other impediments to peace 
and happiness, — and in addition the natural bickerings and contests be- 
tween individuals, by reason of the existence over the same locality but over 
two peoples of not one government for the regulation of individual rights, 
but of two governments each exercising jurisdiction at the same time over 
the same territory, each with its different laws for observance, and each 
with its own judicial system, and its own executive officials, — was not 
all this endurance of toil and suffering and hardship but the result of an in- 
stinct as deep as the depth of all nature herself, to establish for each one 
a home and a family? Hov^ few of these pioneers then knew, and how few 
of their descendants of this day think of the fact, that the establishment 
of this home and family was to be, in the order of nature herself, for the 
foundation upon which the Nation was to arise! 

. You. wdio have reached the ordinary limit of three score years and ten. 
have been building, year by year, like the Chambered Nautilus, the home of 
your individual life on earth. Beginning with a small cell for the infant life, 
chamber after chamber has been added of pearly brightness, until the dwelling 
of your life has rounded out as the years advanced, its brightness of color 
never diminishing, even though here and there for the years of the past there 
are the scars of the wounds of conflict. Go back, now-, with the light of 
memory through each chamber in which you have dwelt, and look again at 
wdiat you may see. 

You see, with the vision of your early days, off at a distance from the 
house of your birth, an old log cabin near an old spring, where cool waters 
come from the foot of the rock or from the roots of an ancient Birch or Oak. 
The walls of this cabin, of but one small room, are of logs hewn within and 
without and chunked and daubed with clay; the battened door, — -there is but 
one, — becomes barred, when the leather strap which lifts the heavy latch 
within is pulled inside; the fireplace is cut widely from the end of the room, 
and the chimney is strongly built on the outside, large stones well mortared 
for the base, and short sticks of wood held by clay to become hardened by 
the heat that comes up from the place of warmth within ; and from the little 
windows, fewJn number and high from the ground, comes the light of the 
little home from the lard oil lamp or tallow candle, which sets up a beacon 
light for the belated traveler. 

This was the home of your pioneer grandfather and grandmother, who 
were ever ready, sitting by the fireside of the more substantial dwelling, built 
in later davs l)v him and his sturdv sons, one of whom was vour father, to 



tell you of the hardships of the past. The old cabin was still preserved 
sacredly intact, until the grandfather and grandmother had passed away. 

The cabins of the early days were improved later by the building of 
the broad-mouth fire-place and chimney of brick, or dressed stone laid with 
mortar and within the room. Still later, two cabins were put up, end to end, 
with a space under a covered way between. One of the rooms thus connec- 
ted served as the cooking and eating room ; the other as the living room. But 
the log cabin of either style has about disappeared forever, and the little 
clearing in which it stood has widened into broad acres of regularly cultivated 
fields. 

But the house in which life came to you and to your sisrers ana 
brothers, was built of larger dimensions. It was made of heavy logs, chunked 
and daubed, two stories in height, finished in oak throughout; and though at 
this date more than a century old, it trembles not in the fiercest storm, and 
a pin cannot enter between the oaken boards of the floor. You remember it 
as it was in your boyhood days, with its red weather-boarding on the outside* 
its large fire-places in large rooms, as well as in the kitchen where the crane 
hung over a back-log- of such length that it might have been riven into fence 
stakes, and on the crane hung the dinner pots, and in front of them on the 
broad hearth, and to the right and left, stood the old-time Dutch-oven, with 
its aids, and the old-fashioned "Reflector," for hot biscuits in relief of the 
old-style bake-oven near at hand on the outside. Yes, and you remember the 
barn below the house on the slope therefrom, as it was in those early days, 
built of logs alone and thatched with straw; large rooms for storing grain on 
each side of the grain-tight barn floor wide enough to turn a loaded team in 
almost, and how that many a time in vour dreams you would fall from the 
floorless loft above, in an agony of fear, until you would awake all right just 
before you struck that floor. 

To the left of the barn, as you saw it from the house, stood the horse- 
stable, and to the left of the stable, but nearer the house was the "Spring- 
House," carefully constructed of stone of even thicknesses clear around, with 
the large stone basin where the milk was kept out of which was made all 
the butter-milk you wanted, and in front and under the same roof was the 
famous spring, let into a basin cut from the solid rock. In front of the 
spring lay a slab of smooth stone, on which as a cool spot would collect in the 
summer weather a green vegetable growth which made it very slippery; and 
you remember well when alone at the spring, in skirts, — for you had not yet 
been admitted into trousers,- — you got thirsty and lay down on your stomach 
to get a drink out of the cool water, without a gourd or a tin cup; and just 
as you were succeeding you plouted in heels over head ! How you managed 
to crawl out you never could remember, but 3'-ou did it, and as. wet and 
dripping from head to foot, you mustered up the pathway to the house, 
you were quickened by the question, "Where 've vou been?" when your 
answer was, "I fell into the spring, but got out again." The last words were 
thought to make a sufficient excuse for the first part of the reply. The old 
house, plain, but commodious and comfortable, received more than fifty years 
ago, however, a complete new dressing in new weather-boarding with white 
paint on the outside, whilst within, with other changes, the wide fire-places 
were taken out. and in their stead were placed modern fire-places for the 
"stone-coal" of the hills. This was the typical dwelling erected by the 
pioneer after he had conquered the wild ways of the wilderness, or by the 
pioneer's son when the pioneer's days on eartli were ended. Manv of this 
class of dwellings here and there over the lands of the Monongahela Valley 



were of stone well dressed or of brick well laid, and as they still endure and 
will last for the hereafter they are at this day not unknown to all. 

But, since the dwellings of the people of the middle days, which were 
the early homes of the strong- men now in active life, we have had tlie turn- 
pike road and stage coach ; the railroad ; the telegraph ; the telephone ; the 
electric dynamo for both light and heat; the sewing machine; the typewriter, 
the spinning jenny for the old-time spinning wheel, natural gas and oil, — and 
now the automobile — both for town and country ; and for the city, the 
arc-light hangs over paved streets, lined with sky-scrapers that tower to 
the skies. The mind cannot grasp at once all the great things we enjoy to 
make the labors of life lighter, which our forefathers had not ; whilst the 
homes that we see to-day for the bringing up of the little ones, rival in com- 
forts, conveniences and elegances the palaces looked upon by the people 
of the old worlds. Let us not speculate, however, as to what we yet may 
have, for our physical comforts and conveniences in the future, but 



"Build tliee more stately man.sions, O my .soul! 

As the swift seasons roll, 

Leave thy low-vaulted past; 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last. 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving tliine outgrown shell by life's unrestins 




